Umpteen
by Pens-are-my-Shurikens
Summary: The number of times she'd desperately love him. Altoshipping.


In an island whose territory belonged to both of Johto and Hoenn is the small island of Alto Mare, now attracting a massive number of tourists and immigrants with the recently-occurred death of the blue eon, Latios. Almost all canoes were reserved or/and occupied for the water tour, all buoy-like boats and ropes were taken for the water-type-only race that occurred around this time of year, and all the tickets for Alto Mare's palace-like museum were sold out.

Not that the girl on the dock cared about any of that.

It had been the umpteenth time she sat on the moss-covered, damp and foot-ridden dock, swaying her velcro baby pink shoes childishly, and a few inches above the high-tide salt waters as well. Her chocolate brown eyes grew intense and thoughtful towards the sketch pad that was gently gripped with the palm of her right hand, her left in possession of a blunt navy-blue pencil.

It had also been the umpteenth time she had succumbed to hours of dreadful tears, yet in the end always failing to have relieved the misery-inducing pain that inflicted in her heart. It killed her optimism on days' end, her artworks beginning to lose its cunning edge, downgraded to pointless shaky scribbles that a five-year-old's parents consider as a hyperbole (alas, we all know the next Da Vinci wouldn't come anytime soon).

The brunette didn't think this day would seek to be any different, so she stopped her leg's wildfire dance, lost the vivid glow in her auburn orbs, let the wooden pencil be grabbed by the dark and deep seas' malicious void with a plop, and the portable canvas experiencing an earthquake with her shaky right hand.

Her eyebrows furrowed as a gesture of being pissed-off with this held-in misery, tucking her chin in the midst of her folded legs, her slender pale peach hands embracing them for support for both balance and comfort, watching the fluffy white cotton that linked with the other misty greys.

Perfect.

It had been the umpteenth time that sailors, traders, and gondola owners who came here regularly or lived here themselves had been inflicted with pity, having eyed the despair-induced girl. When she watched the sky with an air of gloom present in her eyes, when rainwater and tears rode on her cheeks, and when her pad of oslo papers had been invaded with folds, creases and minor rips and tears. Every time these people entered or exited the dock, they would give her a gentle pat on the back, or a second's worth of caressing her cheek. But not today. They would cut in deep if they did.

Instead, they decided to glimpse at this poor innocent brunette, who seemed to have been in another world other than the real one. Rain sprayed lightly on her exposed arms and legs, yet again matching her moments of remorse and emptiness. They became harsher pit-pats as involuntary panting became noticeable to others, a sign of the long period of sobbing she went through. She hugged her legs tighter, not even bothering the stream of tears to stop flowing. She shook her tucked head, denying the fact that it was real, and it was nothing more than a nightmare. However, she knew that was a farce; fate always worked on her that way.

A frown remained on her lips as she flipped the blank paper with slight noise because of the spiral binder linking the oslo papers together. The yellowed paper replacing the clean one was colored with only an incomplete set of poster paints, yet detailed, realistic and generally perfect altogether.

It was perfect — the sketch was of him.

His ebony black hair that went through widfire directions, including the thin and short bangs that covered some of his forehead, the red and white cap with the slanted green "L" in the middle, his dark brown eyes that seemed so soulful, the navy blue coat that was loosely buttoned, and those gloved hands that were used to rip off those silky and sticky strings of thread. _"Perfect"_, apparently, was needless to say.

The girl lightly kissed this paper, then firmly held it inches away from her, staring thoughtfully at her artwork as she examined it for one more second. Embracing it tightly, she murmured almost inaudibly, with a soulful frown and tearful eyes:

"La...la la."

And you could already tell what that meant.


End file.
